Russian cosmonauts to fly on two-week mission to Moon after 2030

The first stage of the program is to be implemented through 2025

Share

1 pages in this article

MOSCOW, November 19. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts will for the first time touch the Moon’s surface after 2030. Their mission will last 14 days, according to a presentation made by Chief Designer, First Deputy CEO of Energia Space Rocket Corporation Yevgeny Mikrin on Monday.

The Energia chief designer made the presentation at a conference devoted to the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station (ISS).

The roadmap of the lunar program presented at the conference suggests that the first crews will be landing on the Moon’s surface from a lunar habitable orbiter. The orbiter is planned to be created using the technology developed for the Russian segment of the space station. The presentation indicates the period of 2030-2035 as the timeframe for creating the lunar orbiter. A transparency of the presentation shows that the cosmonauts are set to make the first landing on the Moon for a 14-day stay.

Overall, the roadmap envisages three stages. At the first stage to last through 2025, there are plans to test all the technologies on the ISS, create a basic module of a near-Moon station, test the promising Federatsiya (Federation) manned spacecraft, make unmanned flights around the Moon aboard the Federatsiya and explore the Moon with the help of automated probes.

The lunar orbital outpost may be created using elements of the Russian segment of the ISS, in particular, the nodal module, the manned spacecraft and the research-energy module, which are expected to be docked to the space station by 2022. Lunar take-off and landing and cargo modules will be attached to the orbiter for landing on the Moon’s surface.

The second stage to last from 2025 to 2035 envisages testing the means of access to the Moon’s surface, performing first manned flights to the Moon’s surface, creating and placing the first elements of the habitable base on the Moon.

At the third stage after 2035, the construction of a full-fledged habitable lunar base will be completed. Also after 2035, the single system of manned and automated probes of exploring the Moon is expected to be created.

Conference devoted to the ISS’s 20th anniversary

The scientific and practical conference, "Cosmonautics: the Open Space of International Cooperation and Development," devoted to the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station runs on Monday at the Cosmonautics and Aviation Center of the All-Russian Exhibition of Economic Achievements (VDNKh) in Moscow.

The conference was opened by Chief of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin. The conference has brought together representatives of Roscosmos, foreign space agencies, cosmonauts and astronauts, designers and rocket builders.